


The Only Good Witcher

by ghostinthelibrary



Series: Where There's a Witcher [8]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Canon-Typical Violence, Getting Back Together, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, mentioned Human Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:02:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29905656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostinthelibrary/pseuds/ghostinthelibrary
Summary: When a mysterious witcher kills three people in Kerack, Lambert and Aiden go to investigate and hopefully stop this from becoming another Blaviken. In the process, they uncover a larger conspiracy while trying to figure out their own complex relationship.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher)
Series: Where There's a Witcher [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604140
Comments: 5
Kudos: 65





	The Only Good Witcher

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, thank you for your patience for the long breaks between installments in this series. Fingers crossed that there won't be such a long wait for the next one!
> 
> If you haven't read the rest of this series and are just here for the Laiden (I've been in rarepair hell, I know how it is) I would recommend at least reading [Once a Witcher](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194776/chapters/66424921) or this probably won't make a whole lot of sense.
> 
> Content warning for non-explicit mentions of human experimentation and the Trial of the Grasses. Nothing happens on screen.

A lot has changed at Kaer Morhen in the four hundred odd years since Lambert set out on the Path. Some of it is shit, like the fact that over half of the keep collapsed in a sacking hundreds of years ago. Most of it is nice, like the running water and electricity (which would have made training a hell of a lot more bearable.) And some of it is fucking annoying, like the godsdamned intercom.

A buzz rings through the alchemy lab, making Lambert jump. “Everyone to the kitchens,” Vesemir’s voice squawks, followed by another buzz.

Grumbling, Lambert abandons the drowner brains he was just dicing up for potions. “My knees aren’t what they used to be,” he says to himself in a creaky voice, imitating Vesemir. “I’m eight hundred years old and my knees were just fine until Jaskier told me about intercoms, and now I can’t walk down a fucking hallway.”

The intercom buzzes again. “We can all hear you, Lambert.”

Well, shit.

Lambert washes his hands, pulls on his “Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me” sweatshirt, a Yule gift from Jaskier and Ciri, and heads down the hallway to the kitchens, where he finds the whole crew already waiting. Kaer Morhen is a lot emptier than it was only a month ago. With most of the active threats against them dead, Ciri, Calanthe, and Eist have returned to Eist’s home in Skellige. No longer needed to tutor Ciri, Triss and Yennefer have gone back to Aretuza. But the remaining inhabitants of Kaer Morhen are all here: Vesemir, Coën, and Eskel.

And Aiden.

Lambert hopes that no one notices the way his heartbeat picks up when he claps eyes on the Cat witcher. It’s been eight months since he learned that his former lover was still alive and six since they kissed, but Lambert still feels like a blushing teenager whenever they’re in a room together, which is just fucking stupid. They’re still working on slowly rebuilding their friendship after Aiden let Lambert think he was dead for three hundred years. Lambert doesn’t need to complicate that by fantasizing about the other witcher’s long, dexterous fingers and the elegant way his body moves and the adorable way his hair flips up at the nape of his neck and—

“You with us, Lambert?” Vesemir asks.

Lambert swallows and plops down in the chair next to Coën, as far away as he can from Aiden without it being obvious that he’s trying to stay away from the Cat. “Yes.”

Vesemir grunts and slides his tablet to the middle of the table. “Jaskier just sent me this. Seems like there was an incident in Kerack last night.”

Lambert leans forward to read the headline, _“Rogue witcher kills three.”_

“Fuck,” Eskel says, echoing Lambert’s own thoughts.

“Is it anyone we know?” Coën asks.

Vesemir shakes his head. “Security cameras didn’t catch many details and none of the witnesses the paper interviewed seemed to have a good description, except for that she was average-height and dark-haired with yellow eyes.”

“She?” Eskel glances at Aiden. "Think it's another Cat witcher? They were the only ones that admitted women.

Aiden shakes his head. “We had four women in our entire history and they’re all dead.”

“So were you,” Lambert points out.

“I’m sure they’re dead.” Aiden’s face shadows. “I was there when they all died.”

There’s a beat of silence as the other witchers give the Cat a moment to remember his dead sisters. 

Lambert is the one who breaks the silence, picking up the tablet and scrolling through the article as he says, “Can’t be sure it was a witcher. The yellow eyes could have been contacts.”

“There’s a video at the bottom,” Vesemir says.

Lambert clicks on the video, which is grainy and poorly lit security camera footage of a darkened parking lot. On screen, what appears to be an average-sized woman is utterly kicking the shit out of a man at least three times her size. Lambert whistles as she lifts him up into the air and slams him into the hood of a car hard enough to leave a dent. The video cuts off as she draws her sword, though Lambert is pretty sure he knows what happens next.

“Yeah, that’s a witcher.” He pushes the tablet away. “Too bad she’s going around murdering people. We could use some new blood around here. I’m getting tired of you assholes.”

Eskel half-heartedly cuffs him on the back of the head. “Who were the victims?”

“A security guard, an intern, and a scientist at F & P Pharmaceuticals," Vesemir says. "They’re based out of Redania, but they have a laboratory in Kerack. This happened right outside the lab.”

“What would a witcher want with some a pharmaceutical company?” Coën asks.

“Could have been a hired hit.” Eskel’s gaze is fixed on the tablet, a furrow in his brow. “Wouldn’t be the first time a witcher decided to hunt humans instead of monsters.”

Everyone looks at Aiden, who just rolls his eyes.

“At this point, all we know is what’s in this article, which is nothing,” Vesemir says. “Don’t know who this witcher is, why she was in Kerack, or what she wanted. Jaskier’s making some phone calls, but he hasn’t turned up anything yet.”

“You told him to stay in Toussaint, right?” Lambert can just see Geralt’s boyfriend deciding to play the intrepid reporter and getting on the bad side of a homicidal maybe-witcher.

“I did,” Vesemir says. “And I hope he’ll be so busy with the book release, the winery, and the new puppy that he’ll listen to me. But someone needs to go to Kerack and take a look around.”

“I’ll go,” Lambert says quickly, because it’s been weeks since he last left the keep. In the dead of winter, there’s no hunting or fishing to be done and there hasn’t been an interesting monster problem in… well, probably since that interdimensional shadow creature nearly brought about the apocalypse four months before.

Vesemir nods. “Who wants to go with Lambert?”

“Me,” Aiden says quickly.

“Excellent. If you leave tomorrow, you’ll—”

“Wait.” Lambert looks between Aiden and Vesemir. “I think I can handle this on my own.”

“There are too many undetermined variables,” Vesemir says. “At least two should go.”

Lambert bristles. He’s four hundred and fifty years old, not a snot-nosed trainee Vesemir can order to run drills. “It’s one witcher.”

Vesemir doesn’t budge. “That we know of. An hour ago, I was certain that there were only five witchers left in the world. If there’s a sixth we didn’t know about, there may be more. And I’d rather not take my chances.”

Lambert opens his mouth to protest, but Aiden interrupts him. “Come on, Lam, it’ll be like old times.”

“Old times,” Lambert echoes, trying not to picture legs tangled together on bedrolls and muffling their moans with pillows in dingy inns, exchanging lazy kisses while washing monster guts out of each other’s hair.

Vesemir looks dubious. The old witcher only knows half of the trouble Lambert and Aiden got up to during “old times.” If he knew all of it, he would probably be sending Eskel and Coën. “Just go to Kerack, see if you can get someone at the lab to talk to you, interview any witnesses you can find.”

“And then what do we do if we find the witcher?” Lambert doesn’t like the idea of killing another witcher, not even if she killed three humans. There are so few of them left.

“Figure out where she comes from, why she did what she did, and if she’s a danger to anyone else. If she is, then do what you have to do.” Vesemir’s frown deepens. “This could be another Blaviken if we’re not careful.”

The mood at the table goes tense. They all remember the decades after Blaviken, when witchers were chased out of towns across the Continent, sometimes even hunted for fun.

“People have started to accept witchers because of Jaskier’s blog, but we all know how fast the tide of public opinion can turn, especially with the internet,” Vesemir says. “We have to play this carefully, or our lives are going to get very unpleasant.”

***

Aiden has never understood the Wolf school habit of rising with the sun. A witcher’s life includes such little comfort; they should be able to sleep in as long as they want. But he manages to drag himself out of bed and make it down to the training yard before Lambert does; he knows the other man is looking for any excuse to leave him behind and Aiden refuses to give him one by being late. When Lambert comes trudging outside a few minutes later, he arches an eyebrow when he finds Aiden already sitting in the four-wheeler they’re going to drive down the mountain.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you awake before dawn,” Lambert says.

Aiden stretches languidly, not missing the way the Wolf’s Adam’s apple bobs. “I was feeling particularly motivated this morning.”

Lambert snorts and throws his gear in the back of the four-wheeler.

Aiden gives Lambert a slow once-over. “Is that really what you’re wearing?”

“What?” Lambert looks down at himself, frowning. “I always wear this sweatshirt.”

Aiden sighs at the truly hideous “Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me” sweatshirt Lambert is wearing under his equally hideous jacket. The mustard yellow of the sweatshirt and the rust brown of the coat do nothing for Lambert’s complexion. “Not armor?”

“Not going to go around interviewing people in armor. No one takes you seriously when you look like you just came from a Ren Faire.”

“You think people are going to take you seriously in that?”

Lambert’s eyes narrow. “What are you trying to say?”

“Nothing.” Aiden’s lips curl into a smile. It’s adorable how Lambert tries to pretend he only wears the shirt to be ironic, when they all know he wears it because Jaskier and Ciri gave it to him and he misses them.

“What the fuck are you grinning it?”

“You. You’re adorable.”

The spluttering noise Lambert makes only makes Aiden grin harder. “I am not adorable. I am not a fucking toddler.”

“Whatever you say, Lam.”

“It’s _comfortable._ ”

“Everyone knows you’re a sentimental bastard at heart.”

Lambert growls and shoves Aiden over. “Move. I’m driving. I don’t actually want to die today.”

“I’m a fine driver!”

“Yeah, maybe of a battering ram. Cars aren’t supposed to go airborne, you prick.”

“That happened once!” But Aiden moves over happily, because he’s perfectly content to lounge in the passenger seat and watch the scenery go. And watch the scenery in the driver’s seat, the beauty of which isn’t diminished at all by the ugly sweatshirt. (Well, it’s diminished a little.)

“Are you ready?” Lambert demands, as if Aiden is the one holding them up.

“Always.” Aiden grins. The Wolf will never know how ready he is.

***

By the time they make it down the mountain and go to get Eskel’s van from the parking spot he pays way too much to rent, Lambert is already regretting everything about this trip. It’s not that he’s unused to Aiden’s presence; the Cat has been living at Kaer Morhen for two-thirds of a year now. Lambert has had plenty of time to acclimate himself to having Aiden around. But this is the first time they’ve been together outside of the familiarity of Kaer Morhen, without the distracting presence of other people.

It’s a sixteen hour drive from Kaer Morhen to Kerack. That’s sixteen hours of being stuck in a car with Aiden, able to smell the spice of his hair pomade and hear the contented little sigh he makes every time he eats one of the fast food tater tots he begged Lambert to stop for. Sixteen hours of trying not to be distracted by the sight of Aiden’s hand resting on the center console, his long fingers tapping in time to the radio. Sixteen hours of knowing how easy it would be to reach over and…

“I think that was our exit.” Aiden’s neck cranes around. “Yeah, that was definitely our exit. We’re going to end up in Lyria at this rate.”

Well, fuck.

***

Aiden knew that driving to Kerack was going to entail sixteen hours in a car with Lambert. He was prepared for this. Maybe eight months ago, when the Wolf couldn’t even be in the same room as him, it would have been a problem. But they’re friends now. They live in the same keep. Spending a day in a car together shouldn’t be any different than spending a day at Kaer Morhen.

Aiden forgot that Lambert has a freckle on the thumb of his right hand. His eyes keep traveling back to that freckle as Lambert rests his hand on the gear shift. Lambert has lots of freckles; Aiden can remember spending a very pleasant afternoon at an inn in Brugge kissing every single one. He drags his gaze away, forcing his thoughts elsewhere. No need to make things awkward by filling the van with the smell of his arousal.

For the last eight months, Aiden has spent every minute of every day forcing himself not to dwell on his feelings for Lambert. The Wolf witcher isn’t ready to forgive him for faking his own death for three hundred years and Aiden can respect that, even if he wants nothing more than to close the distance between them. If Aiden has been able to keep himself under control for eight months, he can manage sixteen hours.

A pickup truck cuts them off and Lambert swears colorfully under his breath, insulting everything from the driver’s mother to their ugly bumper stickers. It shouldn’t be half as cute as it is.

“We should stop for coffee,” Aiden says.

Lambert groans. “We’ve already stopped twice.”

“We’ve been in the car for four hours.”

“And we have twenty to go if we keep stopping.”

Aiden thunks his head dramatically against the window. “Fine, I’ll just waste away in the passenger seat of your brother’s van.”

As far as dramatics go, it’s far from his best, but it seems to work on Lambert. “Fine, I’ll see if there’s anywhere off the next exit.”

Aiden grins. “You’re too good to me, Wolf.”

“Fuck off, Cat.”

Aiden really could get used to this.

***

They arrive in Kerack late at night, both grumpy and out of sorts. The clerk at the hotel where they booked a room eyes them nervously, but still hands over a key, much to Lambert’s relief. He’s too tired to be intimidating right now. But when they get to their room, Lambert groans aloud when he sees what’s waiting for them: one king-sized bed instead of the two beds he was expecting.

“Huh,” Aiden says, not sounding particularly concerned. “Eskel must have made a mistake when he booked the room.”

“Yeah, a mistake.” Lambert drops his bags on the floor and pulls out his phone to text his brother. _“I’m going to fucking kill you.”_

Eskel’s reply is instantaneous. _“Why? Something wrong with your room? :)”_

_“Don’t :) me, you asshole.”_

His only reply is another smiley.

When Lambert looks up from his phone, Aiden is already getting ready for bed. Lambert looks away as Aiden shimmies out of his jeans, leaving them discarded on the floor.

“What are you doing?” he demands.

He’s not looking at Aiden, but he hears the smirk in the Cat’s voice when he says, “Well, I’m not going to sleep fully clothed to soothe your delicate sensibilities.”

“Delicate—” Lambert breaks off with a growl. “I’m going to go sleep in the van.”

“Hey, come on.” The amusement abruptly leaves Aiden’s voice. “It will be fine. We’ve shared beds before.”

“Three hundred years ago.”

“Yeah, and beds hardly ever have lice anymore! And look how big they make them now. You won’t even notice I’m there.”

The bed could be ten times its current size and Lambert would still know exactly where Aiden was, but he can’t tell the Cat that. He also realizes that he’s going to look fucking ridiculous if he goes to sleep in the car. He and Aiden are friends now; he should be able to share a bed with the other witcher without getting the vapors.

“Stay on your own fucking side of the bed, Cat,” he warns.

Aiden’s eyes twinkle. “But of course.”

***

Aiden wakes up the next morning with a Wolf witcher lying half on top of him, one leg thrown over his thighs, Lambert’s face buried in the crook of his neck. It’s a familiar sleeping position; Lambert has always had a tendency to sprawl out in his sleep, no matter where he is or who he’s sleeping next to. They barely knew each other the first time Aiden woke up with Lambert on top of him in the middle of the night. It scared the shit out of him the first time; he thought Lambert was trying to smother him in his sleep.

He missed this, he thinks fondly as Lambert snuffles against him The other man’s weight, the scratch of his beard, the warmth of his skin. It’s the kind of thing he could get used to if he’s not careful.

Gingerly, he reaches up to stroke a hand through Lambert’s hair. It’s as soft as he remembers.

Lambert makes the grumbling noise that he always makes when he’s about to wake up and Aiden closes his eyes and goes still, feigning sleep. He hears Lambert mutter a curse under his breath and the Wolf witcher rolls off of him. Aiden immediately misses the weight on top of him, but doesn’t move. He stays still, feeling Lambert’s gaze on him. After a long moment, he yawns and stretches, then opens one eye. Predictably, Lambert is staring intently at a spot on the wall, pretending that he didn’t even notice Aiden was there.

“Good morning,” Aiden says cheerfully, trying not to take too much pleasure in the flush of Lambert’s cheeks. “Where are we off to today?”

***

The problem with trying to interview locals about a massacre by a witcher is that no one seems to want to talk to two witchers. Word seems to have spread through the sleepy seaside town where they’re staying that there are witchers in town. As Aiden and Lambert make their way through the picturesque downtown, people stare at them from passing cars. Parents tug their children closer. Husbands are careful to walk between the witchers and their wives.

“Feels like the olden days,” Aiden murmurs after the hostess at the diner they stop in for breakfast tells them that there are no tables available, even though over half the restaurant is empty. “I can see why Geralt started traveling with a blogger.”

“I don’t think Geralt kept Jaskier around for his writing skills.”

“I am going to tell Jaskier you said that.”

Lambert snorts. He’s not feeling much like laughing right now, as a young couple walking towards them turns and flees in the opposite direction as soon as they spot the witchers approaching.

“For fuck’s sake,” he growls. “We left our fucking swords in the fucking van.”

He’s never let the disdain of humans bother him, not like Geralt and Eskel always did. It was a fact of life. There’s not a creature in the world more dangerous to humans to other humans, and yet they’ve always put an inordinate amount of energy into hating witchers and elves and dwarves and anyone else they could think of. 

But Lambert realizes he’s gotten used to that fear and disdain being softened. The people in the town where he retired became accustomed to his presence eventually. He never had many friends; people didn’t _like_ him. But they knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t going to murder them for fun or steal their children out of their beds. And once he came out of retirement, Jaskier had already softened the public’s opinion of witchers with his blog and his songs.

“I guess this is why Vesemir was concerned about this being another Blaviken,” Lambert says under his breath. “They all look like they’re going to shit themselves.”

“Remember being fresh out of training and thinking that people would be _happy_ when you showed up to take care of their problem?” Aiden asks, a determinedly pleasant smile on his face.

Lambert only grunts in response. He was old enough when Vesemir took him to Kaer Morhen that he knew how the world at large viewed witchers. He was always aware that if he were one of the “lucky” ones to survive the Trials, that he would face a lifetime of people pissing themselves in fear at the sight of him.

After all, his mother had once tried to drag him out of sight of a witcher. She wasn’t successful.

A cop car slowly cruises by, both officers staring out the window at Aiden and Lambert. Lambert growls under his breath and says, “We should get out of here. No one here is going to tell us if they saw anything.”

“Think we should head to the lab?”

“Doubt they’ll be any friendlier.” Lambert glances over his shoulder to make sure the cop car is still driving. Skittish cops with something to prove are the last thing they need today. “But we can at least try.”

They’ve just made it back to the van when Lambert becomes aware of footsteps hurrying towards them from behind. His shoulders tense and next to him, he feels Aiden’s posture change, ready to leap into battle. The person is clearly walking towards them with intent, a too-fast heartbeat and a faint sour smell giving away their anxiety. Lambert doesn’t reach for the knife holstered under his jacket; there are people around and he doesn’t want to start a panic.

“Excuse me.” The voice is young and soft, with a Metinnan accent. Lambert turns to find a dark-haired young woman standing walking towards them, eyes wide and anxious as they flicker between the two witchers. “Are you here about what happened?”

“We are,” Aiden says, immediately relaxing his posture into a nonthreatening stance, expression friendly and open. “What can we do for you?”

The girl glances over her shoulder nervously. “I need to talk to you about the witcher.”

***

The young woman’s name is Jaina and by the time the three of them have found a bench behind a little cafe and are sitting with their coffees and bagels, she no longer seems convinced that she’s about to be ripped apart. It’s cold out, so Aiden offers her his jacket, which she takes with a grateful smile. The gallantry earns him an eye roll from Lambert, but one of them needs to know how to put people at ease, and gods know it’s not going to be the Wolf.

Until Lambert unzips his own jacket and Jaina notices his "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" sweatshirt. The beginnings of a smile curl her lips. "I like your sweatshirt. My grandpa has one just like it."

Aiden smothers his laugh with a sip of coffee.

Lambert just looks bemused. "Thanks. A friend of mine got it for me."

Sensing that she's finally relaxing— after all, who could be afraid of someone in that ugly a sweatshirt— Aiden begins to make easy smalltalk with Jaina as they eat their bagels. He may as well put her at ease before they start interrogating her about what happened at the lab. She graduated from Oxenfurt the year before and Aiden mentions Jaskier, who also graduated from Oxenfurt and whose blog Jaina turns out to be a fan of. He can feel Lambert getting more and more restless next to him, but Aiden ignores the Wolf until Jaina mentions being an intern at F & P Pharmaceuticals.

“Well, I was,” she says, unease creeping back in. “But they sent us all home after what happened the other night and told us there was no need to come back.”

Lambert sits forward. “And what did happen?”

Jaina chews on her lower lip. “It all happened so fast, I didn’t see much.”

“That’s okay,” Aiden says gently. “Anything you can tell us helps.”

“We’d been working late, a group of us interns,” Jaina says. “There were four of us leaving with Dr. Zeiger, our boss. And we walked outside and saw this woman standing in the lobby. She was fighting with one of the security guards, Simon, shouting at him about his keycard. And when he wouldn’t give it to her, she…”

Jaina breaks off, blinking rapidly.

“She killed him,” Lambert finishes for her.

Jaina nods. “Dr. Zeiger yelled at us to run, so we did. We all ran to our cars. But I heard her go after Dr. Zeiger. She… she didn’t even ask him about his keycard. She just killed him. And then… I used to drive to and from work with my friend, Oma. I made it to the car in time. But Oma didn’t. The woman moved so fast. I’ve never seen anyone move that fast in my life.”

“You don’t have to go into detail, if you don’t want to,” Aiden says, because he can see the glassy-eyed look of a human who hasn’t quite recovered from a terrible shock.

Jaina shakes her head. “I couldn’t move. I should have gotten out and helped her. But I was so scared, I couldn’t move. I just hid in the car until after— until after…” Her words end in a hiccup.

“If you had tried to help, you would be dead too,” Lambert says.

Aiden shoots him an exasperated look. “What my colleague is trying to say is that there’s nothing you could have done, so you shouldn’t torture yourself about it.”

“Yeah, that too.” Lambert shrugs.

Jaina sniffles and wipes her eyes. “I could hear the witcher yelling at Oma, asking the same question over and over again. She wanted a keycard.”

“Why did no one hand over their keycard?” Lambert asks.

“They did! But she wanted a keycard with basement access.”

“And none of you had it?”

Jaina shakes her head. “There is no basement.”

Aiden and Lambert exchange looks. “What kind of projects do you work on at the lab?” Aiden asks.

“Mostly quality control,” Jaina says. “Making sure that no contaminated medicines get sent out. Basic stuff. Nothing worth killing over.”

Aiden can see the same skepticism he’s feeling on Lambert’s face.

“I never thought anything like this could happen.” Jaina’s eyes fill with tears again. “There had been witchers at the lab before and—”

“When?” Lambert leans forward, suddenly intense.

She draws back a bit. “When the CEO visits, he always brings a witcher bodyguard.”

Aiden struggles to keep his expression neutral as he wonders firstly, where the hell these unknown witchers are coming from, secondly, what they’re doing playing bodyguard for the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, and lastly, _why_ a CEO would need a bodyguard to visit his own laboratory. Nothing about this makes sense.

“What did the bodyguard look like?” Lambert asks, making a show of leaning away from Jaina and trying to appear nonthreatening. He’s about as successful at it as a fish trying to walk on land.

“There were two of them.” Jania eyes him dubiously. “The first one, not long after I came here, was a tall man with a shaved head. And the second time, the bodyguard was a woman, probably about my height? Her head was shaved too.”

“Not the same woman who attacked you the other night?”

Jaina shudders. “No, I would remember her face anywhere.”

“Did any of them wear a medallion like this?” Aiden shows her his Cat school medallion.

“No.”

Aiden exchanges another glance with Lambert, because they’re now at three unidentified witchers connected to F & P Pharmaceuticals with no idea what’s going on.

Aiden is only sure of one thing: they need to go visit this laboratory.

***

F & P Pharmaceuticals’ laboratory is a nondescript building, a brick square in the middle of an enormous parking lot. It’s completely at odds with the charming seaside village only ten minutes away.

It’s also completely abandoned. There isn’t a single car in the parking lot. The windows are dark and empty. No people are coming in or out the front door. When Lambert focuses his hearing, he hears no signs of life inside. No heartbeats, footsteps, or voices.

“Guess that’s why they told Jaina and the other interns not to come back,” Aiden says quietly. “They’ve cleaned house.”

“Seems like a totally normal reaction of a company that’s not trying to cover up anything.”

Aiden snorts. “Should have known. ‘Pharmaceutical company’ sounded too innocent.”

Lambert walks up to the front door and tries the handle. Unsurprisingly, it’s locked. With a quick glance around, he casts Aard, shattering the glass. Whistly, he steps over the shards of broken glass and into the lobby.

“You’re lucky it wasn’t alarmed,” Aiden says, shaking his head as he follows. “There are subtler ways we could have gotten in, you know.”

“We don’t have time for subtle. Anyway, what’s the point of a security alarm on an abandoned building?”

“It might not be completely abandoned.”

“Looks pretty fucking abandoned to me.” What was probably the security guard’s desk is unoccupied, the computer powered down and the phone unplugged. When Lambert goes to open the desk drawers, he finds them empty.

A sweep of the building reveals much of the same. The laboratories, office, what looks like a staff lounge— it’s all completely cleared out, down to the last paperclip. Besides the occasional lingering smell of strong perfume in a cubicle or antiseptic in the labs, there’s no sign that anyone ever worked here.

“Shouldn’t this be a crime scene?” Lambert asks. “I feel like cops should be swarming the place.”

“Unless cops don’t see the need to investigate.” Aiden opens a cabinet casually, with the air of someone who knows he won’t find anything in there. “Maybe they’re treating this as a monster attack. After all, you don’t investigate when a drowner drowns someone or a griffin carries someone off.”

“No, you call a witcher, which I don’t see any of those chucklefucks in town thinking of.”

There are three staircases in the four-story building. Not a single one leads to a basement. When Aiden pries open the elevator doors, he finds buttons in the elevator for only four floors, no basement.

“You think our mysterious witcher was mistaken and there’s no basement?” Aiden asks, idly punching at the buttons, like a bored little kid. It shouldn’t be as endearing as it is.

“Seems like a lot of effort to go through if she wasn’t sure,” Lambert says. “Fuck, I wouldn’t come to Kerack if I wasn’t certain I had a reason to be here.”

Aiden rolls his eyes.

“If there is a basement, I don’t see how we’re going to get to it if,” Lambert says.

The Cat looks at him with a glint in his eye that Lambert long ago learned to be wary of. “Well, it’s a good thing I brought my climbing gear.”

Lambert groans.

He’s still groaning a half an hour later, when he’s dangling by a harness around his waist in an elevator shaft, slowly making his way down the side. They’re well past where a basement would be in a normal building, at least two or three stories down from the first floor. There’s no innocent reason for the elevator shaft to go down this far.

“Have I mentioned that I hate this?” he asks through gritted teeth.

“No, you hadn’t.” Aiden is a good story below him, happily scaling the wall. “I had no clue.”

Lambert scowls at him. “I could cut your rope, you know.”

“I’m a Cat. I’d land on my feet.” Aiden grins up at him. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you, Lam?”

“I’m a witcher.”

“That didn’t answer that question.”

“Not fucking _scared._ ”

“Fuck, three hundred years, and you never became a better liar.”

Lambert bares his teeth at the other witcher. Aiden laughs in response, the sound bouncing off the walls of the elevator shaft. If the sound does something to Lambert’s insides, that’s no one’s business but his own.

“Ah, here we are,” Aiden suddenly says. “Think we’ve found our basement.”

“Thank fuck.”

By the time Lambert reaches Aiden, the Cat is busy prying open the elevator doors. The room they find is so pitch dark that it takes even Lambert’s eyes a moment to adjust. It looks like another cleared out laboratory, Lambert thinks as he steps inside and unfastens his harness. For a moment, he’s pissed that they’ve wasted their time. Then the smell hits him and every muscle in his body goes rigid.

He hasn’t smelled that bitter scent in centuries, but he would know it anywhere.

“Grasses,” he whispers.

Next to him, Aiden growls low in his throat. “What the fuck?”

Lambert’s hands are shaking. His jaw starts to ache fiercely and it’s only then that he realizes that he’s gritting his teeth, like he’s trying to stop a tube from being forced down his throat.

“There’s a door,” Aiden says quietly.

“I see it.” Lambert takes a step forward, even though he’s never wanted to turn tail and run more in his life. That faint, bitter scent is nearly overpowering.

The door is in the back corner of the lab. Lambert walks towards it slowly, holding his breath in a vain attempt to keep the choking smell of Grasses out of his nostrils. When he pushes open the door, he hears Aiden curse behind him, but Lambert can’t even speak, because he’s a kid again, with his first scraggly whiskers growing on his chin, as he’s strapped to a table, fighting and screaming every step of the way. As he listens to his brothers die around him. As he begs for someone to make it stop, but no one does.

There are four tables, each cold and impersonal, like what Lambert would expect to find in a morgue. They’re each nailed to the ground. There are metal cuffs for the wrists and ankles, as well as leather bits riddled with teeth marks.

“Sad Albert,” Lambert whispers.

“Gods.” Aiden makes a choking noise.

“I guess we know what they’re doing down here.”

Neither of them speak. They stand in the darkness for a long moment, both reliving their own worst memories.

Finally, Lambert can’t stand in anymore. “We should go. There’s nothing to find here.”

“Couldn’t agree more.” Aiden’s voice is shaky. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

The easy good humor from earlier is gone as they begin to climb the elevator shaft in silence. Lambert’s insides feel heavy with dread. This is the worst case scenario that they’ve all feared ever since before most of the witcher schools fell: that humans would get wind of how to create more witchers. Fringilla Vigo and Nilfgaard already came perilously close when they figured out how to _unmake_ witchers. But the thought that a pharmaceutical company could have been making witchers for years without anyone noticing…

Well, Lambert thinks he might puke.

He’s jerked out of his thoughts when a sudden explosion rocks the elevator shaft. The cables suspending them swing violently and Lambert clings to his.

“What the fuck?” he demands, voice suddenly far too pitchy.

“Lambert.” In contrast, Aiden’s voice is sharp and authoritative. “Grab on to—”

There’s a second explosion and Lambert feels the cable holding him loosen as it snaps. His pinwheeling arms reach for Aiden, but it’s too late. He gets one glimpse of the Cat’s horrified face, and then he’s falling.

The last thing he hears is Aiden screaming his name.

***

Aiden sees the surprise and confusion on Lambert’s face turn to fear a second before he falls. He reaches for Lambert, but it’s too late. His fingers barely brush the Wolf witcher’s wrist before Lambert plunges out his reach into the darkness of the elevator shaft.

“Lambert!” Aiden screams, terror like he’s never felt before turning his insides to ice.

He doesn’t realize that someone is moving towards him until it’s too late.

He just manages to turn to see slit-pupiled yellow eyes glinting in the darkness before something slams into him. He hits the side of the elevator shaft, his head ricocheting off the concrete, and everything goes black.

***

Lambert wakes to darkness. He rears up instantly, disoriented and furious, but finds that he can’t move. He looks down to find himself cuffed by his wrists and ankles to a table and realizes where he is: the lab underneath F & P Pharmaceuticals. The bitter scent of the Grasses still lingers in the air. Lambert jerks at the cuffs, refusing to give into the panic he can feel rising in his chest. He’s dreamed about this too many times: being strapped to a table, knowing what’s coming and being unable to stop it.

He takes quick stock of his injuries. His head is killing him; he must have hit it during his fall. Other than that, he seems fine, other than a few bumps and bruises.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

Lambert doesn’t jump. He’s a witcher, damn it; people can’t just sneak up on him.

He twists his neck around to see the witcher standing in the corner. She’s of average height and athletically built, with sharp features and short dark hair. Her yellow eyes are fixed on Lambert, expression inscrutable.

“You shouldn’t have killed three people,” he tells her. “Now, who the fuck are you?”

She doesn’t answer, moving towards him slowly. “I have no quarrel with you or your friend. If you had just left, everything would have been fine.”

A chill races up Lambert’s spine. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing. I sent him on his way.”

Lambert doesn’t know if he believes her, but he can’t let himself dwell on the possibility of Aiden being dead.

“I could have let you fall,” she says, sounding a bit defensive. “But I didn’t.”

“You set off the fucking explosion that nearly killed me.”

She lifts one shoulder into a shrug. He can’t place her age. She looks no more than her mid-twenties, though it’s hard to tell with witchers.

Lambert takes a deep breath, trying to think of what Eskel, Coën, or Aiden would do. “My name’s Lambert of the Wolf School,” he says in a determinedly neutral voice. Snarling and snapping won’t get him out of this alive, he doesn’t think. “And you are?”

She’s quiet for a moment before she says. “Cara. No school.”

“What are you doing here, Cara?” he asks. “And why did you kill those people?”

“I’m here because I want answers. And I killed them because they needed to die.”

Lambert twists his wrist, trying to see if he can find a weak point in the cuff. “This is where you were made.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Four, maybe five years ago.”

Lambert has so many questions, but he knows he has to tread carefully. Something in Cara’s empty gaze disconcerts him. “How?”

“You know how.” She pats the table. “They strapped me to one of these, they put a tube down my throat, and they filled me up with mutagens.”

Lambert barely resists the urge to shudder.

“I was a soldier,” Cara says. “I got injured fighting rebels in Kovir. Couldn’t stand without feeling like my legs were on fire afterwards. They said they would make me better. Instead, they turned me into this.”

“Yeah, it fucking sucks, doesn’t it?”

It’s clearly not what she expected. She blinks at him.

“Look, none of us signed up for this,” Lambert says. “There’s not a single witcher who woke up one day as a kid and decided ‘hey, I want to be a witcher when I grow up’ and went off to live their dreams. I was a child surprise. My friend, Aiden, was a war orphan. My brother, Geralt, was abandoned by his mother in the woods. None of us had happy beginnings. Very few of us get happy endings either. It’s bullshit and it’s not fair, but it is what it is.”

“I’m a monster.”

“No, you’re a witcher. Not actually the same thing.” Lambert shifts. The cold metal table isn’t exactly comfortable. “Look, why don’t you let me up, and we can talk about this?”

“No,” Cara growls. “I know what you’re here to do.”

“Yeah, and what’s that?”

“Kill me.”

“Only if we have to,” Lambert says. “I’m hoping that we don’t. I’m not a big fan of killing my fellow witchers.”

Except for Jad Karadin, but that fucker had it coming.

“Why did you kill those people?” Lambert asks.

“I needed to get down here,” she says. “I hadn’t been down here… since before. I needed to see if there were any others out there. I wanted to know exactly what was done to me and if it could be undone. But I didn’t know how to get down here and everyone kept telling me that there wasn’t a basement.”

“Because they didn’t know,” Lambert says. “Did you really think that a security guard and a fresh out of college intern were going to know about the secret lab beneath the building?”

She doesn’t say anything.

“Or did you not care?”

“Every single person who works here was complicit in what happened. They were either involved or they turned a blind eye. They all profited.”

“You’re asking a lot of people who make twelve crowns an hour.”

Her expression changes. She no longer looks impassive, but furious. “And what about me? Look at what they asked of me! I spent _years_ locked in this basement. It was hell, and for what? Most of us died, so they didn’t even get the army of supersoldiers they were looking for!”

“So what’s your plan now that they’ve all cleared out? Doesn’t look like there’s anything left here to find.”

Cara looks at him coldly. “I’m going to burn this place to the ground and then I’m going to go and make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone ever again. That every last person involved dies screaming, just like so many of us did.”

“Well, I can’t blame you for that.” Lambert tugs at his cuffs. “If you’ll just uncuff me, I’ll get out of your way—”

“No.”

Lambert swallows. He wonders what will happen to him this far down if the building above burns down. “I’m not your enemy.”

“No, but you’re someone who’s in my way.” Cara starts towards the door. “I’m sorry, for what it’s worth, but you’re a witcher. You’re not going to let me seek revenge.”

Lambert struggles harder. “You know, that would be true of my brothers, but I’m actually a big fan of revenge. So long as you promise not to butcher anymore innocent interns and security guards—”

“But I can’t promise that.” She bares her teeth at him. “Goodbye, Lambert of the Wolf School.”

“Wait—” Lambert calls, but she vanishes through the door, slamming it shut behind her. “Motherfucker!”

A moment later, he smells smoke.

***

When Aiden wakes up, he’s flat on his back on the ground, looking up at the thick gray clouds rolling across the sky. His head hurts, the inside of his mouth tastes like coppery blood, and his thoughts are fuzzy. For one blissful moment, he doesn’t remember what happened and then it all comes rushing back to him. The elevator shaft. The explosion. Lambert falling. The glint of yellow eyes in the dark.

And then he smells the smoke and realizes that the clouds above him aren’t clouds at all, but smoke. He looks up to see the lab aflame, smoke and flames billowing from the windows. For a long moment, he can only stare, horrified.

“Lambert,” he finally manages to croak, staggering to his feet.

There’s a chance that Lambert survived the fall. It was only three or four stories. But Lambert isn’t a Cat witcher; he doesn’t have the mutations that make him unable to withstand falls from great heights. If he survived, he would have been badly injured, lying helplessly at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Once the fire started, he would have been unable to escape.

Aiden stares at the burning building, listening for the sound of someone shouting curses, or at the very least a heartbeat. He only hears the roar of flames and the pounding of blood in his own ears. He knows in his bones that if Lambert escaped that building, he would be next to Aiden right now. But if he didn’t escape…

Aiden screams, loud and long. It does nothing to let out the grief and anger he can feel rising in him. If he had just been a little faster, if he had kept Lambert within arm’s reach of him…

A figure comes striding out of the building. For one glorious moment, Aiden thinks it’s Lambert. But then he realizes that the person is too short and slim to be Lambert, with dark hair instead of red. When the witcher sees Aiden sitting on the ground, her face betrays no concern.

“You’re awake,” she says.

“Where is he?” Aiden rises to his feet, hand reaching back to find the hilt of his steel sword.

“You know the answer to that question.”

There’s a buzzing noise in Aiden’s ear. His heart is pounding so fast, it almost feels human. “Why?” he growls.

“He was a Wolf,” she says. “From what I’ve heard, they’re all noble bastards. He would have gotten in my way and I can’t afford that. But you’re a Cat. I know you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty. I think you and I could work something out.”

“Work something out,” Aiden echoes.

“I’m going to destroy the people who did this to me,” the witcher says. “I’m going to kill them and everyone they care about, and I’m going to do it slow. I could use the help.”

Aiden takes a step towards her. “Did he die in the fall, or did you leave him to burn to death?”

Her brow furrows. “Does it matter?”

Aiden draws his sword and throws himself forward. She must have been more on guard than she appears, because she meets his blade with her own. Absently, he notes that she’s using silver.

“There’s nothing on the fucking Continent that mattered to me more than him,” he snarls and then he’s lost in the whirl of blades, the scent of blood on the air— his or hers, he’s not sure— the sound of his heartbeat thundering in his ears.

It’s been a long time since Aiden has gone feral. It’s a common side effect of the Cat school mutations, but he always had more control than his brothers or sisters, especially after he met Lambert.

_Lambert trying to meditate on the other side of the campfire, nose scrunching adorably in annoyance as Aiden pelted him with small rocks._

_Lambert bathing in a stream, water glistening on his chest and shoulders._

_Lambert laughing so hard at a dirty joke that he nearly fell off his horse._

Aiden pushes the memories aside, focusing on the task at hand: destroying the other witcher. She’s good, quick on her feet and skilled with a blade, but she was clearly unprepared for the pure murderous fury of a feral Cat witcher. She’s on the defensive, blocking and parrying his blows desperately. Her eyes are wide and Aiden can see that she’s scared. _Good._ Every bit of pain and fear that Lambert may have felt, he wants her to experience tenfold.

He draws back his blade to strike and the other witcher shouts, “He’s alive!”

Aiden pauses. “What?”

“He’s alive,” she says again. “Or at least, he was when I left. He’s down in the lab.”

“You’re lying.” Aiden steps towards her.

“Listen to my heartbeat,” she says. “You can either waste time fighting me, or you can go save him. Every second you delay, it’s more likely smoke inhalation or the flames will have gotten him.”

Her heartbeat is steady. He takes another step. “I could kill you right now.”

“You could,” she says. “And then if you find him dead downstairs, you’ll always wonder if those couple of minutes you took to finish the job were what cost him his life.”

_Lambert the first time he and Aiden fucked, falling asleep on top of Aiden with their cheeks pressed together._

_Lambert throwing himself between an injured Aiden and a territorial mother griffin._

_Lambert’s face when he realized that Aiden was alive after three hundred years._

“If you’re lying,” Aiden says slowly, the buzzing in his ears diminishing only slightly. “If he’s dead, I will find you.”

Her gaze meets his levelly. There’s blood trickling out of the corner of her mouth. “You can try.”

Aiden drops his sword and runs towards the burning building.

***

Lambert can see the flames flickering under the closed door, but it’s not the flames he’s worried about. No, it’s the smoke that’s going to kill him. Thick and choking, it makes it near-impossible to breathe. He still fights the cuffs binding him to the table, but he’s weakening and all he’s managed to do is leave his wrists and ankles bruised and bloody. He’s not going to get out of this, he realizes grimly. Aiden is on the other side of a wall of flame, hopefully safe and sound. No one else is coming for him.

He’s getting tired. He desperately wants to close his eyes, but knows that he shouldn’t. Knows he should stay awake.

He thinks he hears a voice calling his name.

The door slams open and there’s Aiden, silhouetted in a wall of flame, his teeth bared and blood on his cheek. There’s no humanity in his eyes, just a feral glint. Lambert has only seen that look on Aiden’s face once, when a group of men attacked him and Lambert with pitchforks and torches. Not a single one of their attackers survived Aiden’s wrath.

It’s a nice last hallucination to have, Lambert thinks as Aiden crosses the room and uses Aard to break the cuffs around his wrists. When Aiden lifts him into his arms, Lambert lets his head fall against the hallucination’s chest.

He’s vaguely aware of flames and smoke surrounding him, of being cradled against Aiden as they ascend the elevator shaft, of fresh, cold air in his lungs, of hands patting his face and water being poured into his mouth.

“It’s okay, love,” the Aiden who can’t really be there says. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

And then Lambert must finally succumb to the urge to close his eyes and drift off, because the next thing he knows, he’s waking up in the back of Eskel’s van. They’re moving and in the driver’s seat, Aiden is singing along to the pop song on the radio.

“You’re not allowed to drive this van,” Lambert grumbles, sitting up. His eyes are dry and the inside of his mouth tastes like smoke.

Aiden doesn’t turn to look at him, but Lambert can still see his smile. “That’s a rule you made, not Eskel.”

“Eskel’s not here. As his brother, it’s my job to make sure that his car gets home to him in one piece.”

“I’m sure he’ll forgive you due to the smoke inhalation.” Aiden tosses Lambert a water bottle. “How are you feeling, Sleeping Beauty?”

“Like shit, thanks.” Lambert downs the whole bottle, glancing down at himself. His sweatshirt is stained with blood and riddled with char marks. "Fuck, this sweatshirt is ruined."

"Thank fuck," Aiden mutters.

Lambert turns to glare at him, noting the low light outside. “How long have I been out?”

“About three hours.”

“Fuck.” Lambert scrubs at his eyes. “What happened?”

“Our witcher friend tried to burn down the laboratory with you in it.”

“Yeah, I remember that part. But how the fuck am I not barbequed?”

“I got you out.”

“ _How_?”

“I climbed down to get you and then climbed back up.”

“But that’s—” Cats are built for speed and agility, not brute strength like the Wolves. For Aiden to have managed to climb up an elevator shaft with a barely conscious Lambert in his arms while the building was on fucking fire is unbelievable. Then Lambert remembers the animal rage in Aiden’s eyes. “You went feral.”

Aiden nods. “I did.”

“Fuck.” Aiden would have been impervious to pain or fear, completely focused on his goal. “So I guess Cara is dead?”

“Is that her name? No, last I saw of her, she was alive. She won’t be if I ever see her again.”

“You left her alive?” Lambert frowns. Normally, when a Cat witcher goes feral, the only thing they give a fuck about is killing whoever set them off.

“It was either save you or kill her.” Aiden shrugs. “It wasn’t a hard decision to make.”

Lambert stares at the back of Aiden’s head. He knows how strong Aiden’s urge to kill would have been. And yet, he didn’t cut Cara down. He managed to push aside his instincts and save Lambert instead.

“Pull over,” he says.

Aiden scoffs. “Lamb, I promise you, my driving isn’t that—”

“Pull over, you asshole.”

“Fine,” Aiden grumbles and the van slows.

Lambert barely manages to wait until Aiden pulls over and puts the van into park before he reaches out and grabs a handful of the Cat witcher’s jacket, yanking him into the back. Aiden makes a surprised noise as Lambert manhandles him into his lap and kisses him. Lambert’s hands clutch the front of Aiden’s jacket while Aiden’s fingers thread through Lambert’s hair. Their tongues tangle together, as familiar as they were to each other all those centuries ago. Everything about Aiden— his taste, his smell, the way his breath hitches in his throat— is so beautifully familiar that it almost makes Lambert want to weep.

But he won’t, because he’s not a fucking sap like Geralt.

“I thought you were dead,” Aiden whispers against his mouth. “Fuck, Lam, I thought you were dead and I realized what I put you through for all those years. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Lambert says softly and he realizes he means it. He spent so long being angry and for what? He could have died in that lab without ever having this, the warm weight of the man he loves in his lap, Aiden’s lips against his. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Aiden leans his forehead against Lambert’s. “You ever scare me like that again, Wolf, and I’ll shove you down an elevator shaft myself.”

Lambert presses a kiss to the tip of his nose. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

***

“You know, the others all had a bet about when we would finally work our shit out,” Aiden tells Lambert much later in the bed of the shitty little roadside motel where they stopped to make up for three hundred years of lost time. From the smell of it, the room hasn’t been cleaned in months, but they’ve been too busy to care.

Predicitibly, Lambert grumbles at that. “Fuckers. Who won?”

“Pretty sure it was Eskel. Another couple of months or so and it would have been Ciri.”

Well, that explains the one bed in the hotel room in Kerack. Lambert may have to kill Eskel when they get home. “Think we should wait a couple of months to tell everyone we’re together?”

“No, we shouldn’t,” Aiden says firmly. “Because I intend on being in your bed every night, which will be hard to explain away.”

“Do you?” Lambert raises an eyebrow at him.

“I do.” Aiden presses a kiss to the scar on Lambert’s collarbone. “You know, if you had made your move around Yule, I would have won the bet.”

“You were in on the bet?”

“Well, of course! It was only ten crowns per guess.”

“You’re a dumbass,” Lambert says, but his voice is so full of fondness that the insult loses its edge.

“But I’m your dumbass.” Aiden grins up at him.

Lambert’s lips twitch. “In another two months or so.”

“Oh, fuck off, Wolf.”

Lambert chuckles and kisses him.

They spend another couple of hours getting reacquainted with each other’s bodies, after which Aiden falls asleep tucked under Lambert, warm and content in his Wolf’s arms as he feels Lambert’s slow, steady heartbeat against his.

When he wakes up again, it’s the middle of the night and Lambert is no longer sleeping on top of him. Instead, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, phone in hand and muttering to himself.

“What is it?” Aiden sits up, rubbing his eyes.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Lambert says. “So I decided to look up F & P Pharmaceuticals.”

Aiden groans. “Couldn’t it wait until morning? There’s such a thing as afterglow, Lam.”

Lambert shakes his head. “F & P Pharmaceuticals used to be called Freidrich & Pankratz Pharmaceuticals, after its two founders.”

The name sparks something in Aiden’s memory.

“One of the founders, Julian Pankratz, died twenty years ago of cancer. The other founder, Simon Freidrich, died five years ago of a heart attack. The current CEO is Alfred Pankratz, Julian’s nephew.” Lambert hands over his phone. “This is him.”

For a moment, Aiden thinks that the man smiling up from the screen is Jaskier, until he notices the fine lines around the man’s eyes and the salt and pepper hair. Alfred Pankratz has the well-preserved look of someone who could be anywhere between forty or sixty. His face is as cherubic as Jaskier’s, though his wide, blindingly white smile lacks the blogger’s warmth. His eyes are hazel instead of blue, but they have the same shape.

“Fuck,” Aiden says, looking up at Lambert as he realizes why the name Pankratz sounds so familiar. Jaskier. Julian Alfred Pankratz.

“Fuck indeed.” His Wolf’s mouth is set into a grim line. “We should head to Toussaint in the morning. We need to talk to Jaskier.”

***

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated. Feel free to come yell at me on [Tumblr](https://ghostinthelibrarywrites.tumblr.com/) or on Discord at ghostinthelibrary#1691
> 
> My aim is that the last installment in this series will be out by the end of April, but if you've been following this series for a while, you know how bad I am at predicting things like that!


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